A Day Covered in Chocolate

Of all the National Chocolate Days today is the End All to Beat All Chocolate Days. Cover the world with chocolate. If you can dream it, you can dip and drizzle your way to Chocolate Heaven. Play it safe with a chocolate fondue if you like. Or go a little crazy with chocolate covered bacon.

While Kiddo lives for bacon, we have a freezer bursting with summer’s harvest of peppers. The up side to freezing peppers is that you have garden grown peppers all year long. The down side is that if you froze them whole (seeds and all) then the ice crystals are super charged with pepper oils, and it’s in those oils you’ll find both intense flavor (in mild peppers such as bell) and heat as in off the charge hot Habanero Peppers.

One way to manage the heat would be simply to use less peppers. You get that same wow factor with fewer peppers, and that means the peppers will last longer – all the way to the next harvest with a little luck. Another way to go is with chocolate. Okay, so maybe chocolate doesn’t lower the heat index, but it sure make for a great way to use the peppers.

Yeah, this recipe works just as well with fresh peppers. So don’t worry if you don’t have a freezer packed with peppers. In reality, fresh with give you a crunch missing from the frozen variety.

Here’s the Chocolate Covered Anything Day and new, delightful Chocolate Creations!

Chocolate Covered Jalapeno Peppers
20 Jalapeno Peppers, divided
10 oz Semi-Sweet Chocolate, divided
3 tablespoons Crisco, divided
10 oz White Chocolate, divided

Clean jalapenos, dry well with paper towels. Divide into two piles of 10 peppers each, set aside.

Heat a double boiler low heat. Add 7 ounces of the semi-sweet chocolate with 1 tablespoon Crisco to the pot. Stir often until the chocolate is melted and smooth.

Dip half of the jalapeno peppers into the melted semi-sweet chocolate, coat well while holding the pepper by the stem.

Set the chocolate jalapeno peppers on wax paper to cool. Refrigerate to speed up the process.

Heat a double boiler low heat. Add 7 ounces of the white chocolate with 1 tablespoon Crisco to the pot. Stir often until the chocolate is melted and smooth.

Dip half of the jalapeno peppers into the melted white chocolate, coat well while holding the pepper by the stem.

Set the chocolate jalapeno peppers on wax paper to cool. Refrigerate to speed up the process.

In a clean double boiler, melt remaining 3 ounces of white chocolate with 1/2 tablespoon Crisco.

Hold each of the semi-sweet chocolate jalapeno peppers over the white chocolate, and with a small spoon, drizzle white chocolate over the jalapeno in a small but steady stream. Be creative with the designs.

Set semi-sweet jalapenos on the wax paper to cool.

Clean double boiler and repeat, melting the remaining 3 ounces of semi-sweet chocolate to drizzle over the white chocolate covered jalapenos.

Arrange on a serving platter and enjoy some heat with your chocolate.